Unlike the noisy life of the city, there is a peaceful scene of a small hut beside the fields of Vinh Quynh Commune. Many people call it “a thatched hut, two golden hearts” because of the moving love story of the couple with disabilities.
Two lives, one fate
For many years now, people around Vinh Quynh Commune, Thanh Tri District, Hanoi, have been familiar with the sight of a young man and woman sharing a wheelchair as they roam the streets. Whether in sunshine or rain, wherever they go they are together, two people sharing one fate, blending into the bustling crowd.
They are husband and wife Duong Van Minh, born in 1983 in Viet Yen District, Bac Giang Province, and Nguyen Thi Thuong, born in 1976 in Vinh Ninh Village, Vinh Quynh Commune, Thanh Tri District, Hanoi.
The small hut, with its simple belongings, is the home of Mr Minh and Ms Thuong
Talking with us about his fate, Mr Minh said that he unfortunately became paralysed as a child after a long illness that left his legs unable to stand or walk. His family took him for treatment everywhere, selling everything in the house, including the buffalo they used to plough the fields, but the illness did not heal. With five children in the family and parents who farmed and depended only on a few plots of land, he had to leave school halfway through, after finishing grade 7.
The days passed, and as he grew up he secretly longed for a family of his own but did not dare to think of it. His dream, which seemed as though it would never come true, suddenly became real when he met Ms Nguyen Thi Thuong, a person in the same situation.
Her circumstances were no different from his: Ms Thuong became paralysed after a fever. Her childhood passed in self-consciousness and a sense of inferiority. Her family also had five children, and her parents farmed, so they could not afford to send her to school. When she became aware of things, seeing her parents’ worried looks and the pity of those around her, she told herself she must be truly strong, practising walking with crutches, doing personal tasks herself, and helping her parents with small jobs around the house.
In 2005, Ms Thuong applied to learn a trade at the Quynh Hoa Vocational Training Centre for People with Disabilities, to earn a living for herself later and lighten the burden on her family. It was there that she met Mr Minh, who had also enrolled to study there. At their very first meeting, Mr Minh felt a deep affection for the woman seven years older than him. And it was the sincere love of the younger man that made Ms Thuong’s heart stir.
Empathy, overcoming difficulties to come together
In their days at the Centre, Ms Thuong and Mr Minh worked together every day folding paper rolls to make toy animals and folding cards to earn a little money to support themselves and save for the future. But just as their love was ripening, they met opposition from their families.
They cannot remember how many times they went to each other’s home villages to persuade both families. In the early days of their love, everyone was uneasy, because the parents on both sides thought that, with both of them having disabilities in their legs and finding it hard even to walk by themselves, how could they support each other? After many attempts to persuade them, it was their sincere love that finally won both families’ consent.
Mr Minh confided that the time he spent loving Thuong and overcoming difficulties and hardships together was sustained by love. “For people with disabilities like us, love is all the stronger because we empathise with each other and need each other.”
With sincere love, to be happy together.
A thatched hut, two golden hearts
The small hut stands apart from the village, built makeshift with a fibre-cement roof covered with a few old blankets. Sun, rain, wind and storms all “visit”. Inside the “small hut” are the simple belongings the couple were given by other people. There is no running water, no toilet, no bathing place. In front of the hut a few bamboo poles stand with a tarpaulin stretched across them, making a place to sell drinks… But the place is always full of laughter.
“My wife and I have loved each other for nearly ten years, and for all those years we only dreamed of being together; now it has finally come true. We would not even have dared to dream of a hut like this; it is not ours – our parents contracted the fish pond, so we have somewhere to live. As long as we are together, however hard it is, we will overcome it”, Mr Minh shared.
Every day, Mr Minh has to drag himself along, feeling his way, before he can set out the plastic table and chairs to sell drinks. And Ms Thuong also finds it very hard, with a basket of eggs on her lap, slowly wheeling herself to the market to sell them. The flimsy plastic table and chairs, a few bottles of soft drinks and a basket of eggs under the bed are all the possessions the couple have saved up to start their livelihood.
Ms Thuong said that on their best day of selling they earn only a few tens of thousands of dong, and on rainy days she cannot go to the market to sell eggs, and Mr Minh’s drinks stall is quiet and empty of customers, because it is near the fields and few people pass by.
The drinks stall that Mr and Ms Thuong live by
Most of the customers at their drinks stall are acquaintances, villagers going to work in the fields who stop by, or rubbish-cart workers taking a rest. Their customers are also very special: they serve themselves, because they sympathise with the owner whose legs make walking difficult.
We said goodbye to Mr and Ms Minh on an autumn afternoon, as they were hurriedly cooking their evening meal. The husband, his legs folded under him, was reaching up to the stove to boil vegetables, while his wife limped to measure out rice to cook… All their daily life fits inside a hut of about 13 square metres, yet the laughter never stops. Seeing Mr and Ms Minh happy together made us admire them. I realised that amid a busy, difficult, thorny life, they are still ready to overcome it all, because they are full of will and determination. There still exists “a thatched hut, two golden hearts”.
Nguyen Hoan – http://petrotimes.vn